Center for Psychedelic Policy

Ground Game

Government EN ↓ 6 episodes

The science on psychedelic therapy is accelerating, and the policy is trying to catch up. The people caught in between are the ones who need affordable, accessible care and can't get it yet. Ground Game, from the Center for Psychedelic Policy, talks to the researchers, clinicians, and advocates working at that intersection, translating the momentum into something legislators, funders, and advocates can act on. The podcast is hosted by Sam Chapman, who led the campaign that created the first regulated psilocybin program in the nation.

Author

Center for Psychedelic Policy

Episodes

Amy Charlesworth: Healing Veterans and First Responders with Psilocybin 11.09.2026 1:21:56

Amy Charlesworth spent 16 years in the Army before she found herself suicidal, having exhausted every conventional treatment the VA system had to offer. A single retreat experience with psilocybin changed that trajectory, and she's spent the years since as a licensed Oregon facilitator whose practice centers on veterans and first responders. Amy and Sam Chapman break down her 12-week program of pr...

Sen. Jeff Steinborn: How New Mexico Created Psilocybin Access Through the Legislature 16.07.2026 57:15

Senator Jeff Steinborn didn't know much about psilocybin therapy when a constituent called him the week before the 2024 legislative session. What followed ended with New Mexico becoming the first state legislature in the country to pass a psilocybin access program. SB 219 passed through the Legislature by a large margin, but the path wasn't always certain. Steinborn walks through the committees th...

Amanda Gow: Building the Mental Health Clinic That Psilocybin Therapy Needs 10.06.2026 56:37

Amanda Gow didn't set out to build a psilocybin service center. She set out to build a mental health clinic that uses psilocybin as a tool. After 15 years working in trauma-focused youth services, she saw firsthand how often the people who needed mental health care the most had the fewest real options. Her answer was Bendable Therapy, a psilocybin-assisted therapy model staffed entirely by license...

Dr. Matthew Hicks: Making the Case for Low-Income Access 26.05.2026 1:10:46

Most of the research done on psilocybin has happened at elite institutions with carefully selected participants. Dr. Matthew Hicks did something different. He ran the first clinical trial ever conducted inside a state-regulated psychedelic program. He focused on a low-income population that clinical trials have systematically failed to reach and that public payers have systematically failed to ser...

Lt. Diane Goldstein: How Law Enforcement is Rethinking Psychedelics 11.05.2026 1:19:55

Retired police lieutenant and Law Enforcement Action Partnership (LEAP) Executive Director Diane Goldstein joins Sam Chapman to discuss drug policy reform, the role of psychedelics in addressing law enforcement trauma, and LEAP's advocacy for psychedelic access and mental health support. The conversation also covers the fiscal case for legal psychedelic access and the broader psychological and soc...

Dr. Adie Rae: Inside Oregon's First Federally Funded Psilocybin Study 28.04.2026 1:01:05

To launch Ground Game, Sam Chapman speaks with Dr. Adie Rae, co-director of the Open Psychedelic Evaluation Nexus, the team at the center of a historic $3.3 million NIDA grant to track outcomes in Oregon's legal psilocybin program. The conversation covers what Oregon's program has already revealed about safety and efficacy, why real-world data matters, the economic realities of building psilocybin...